PRAISE FOR WOMEN À LA MODE
"I love this book! Women À La Mode is not just a memoir about women. It's a book that encompasses all of life.
The book is hard to put down, and it keeps drawing me back to revisit it. The narrator comes to Paris to explore some of her life's biggest questions: what does a feminist look like? Is it possible to pursue creative and personal independence and embrace sisterhood and still hold out for a "fairytale" happy ending? Can feminism be beautiful, fashionable, glamorous? The book, as Blaisdell says, is no stilted "five paragraph essay" but a warm and comforting quilt for readers to wrap around their shoulders. With an enigmatic friend and mentor, Claudine, at its center, and many fascinating side trails (from the origins of high heels to the possibilities of French obscenities) this book holds surprises on every page. And it has a narrative momentum that is undeniable and also mysterious. Blaisdell has dispensed with an obvious chronological through-line and replaced it with something beautiful and associative. The reader reads on, not to discover the 'next big happening' but to trace her evolving thought processes, listen in on good conversations, and chart her adventures.
I read this book during the hideous events of early January, and I found that Women À La Mode was exactly what I needed to break that feedback loop. Life has become so regimented, broken up, hurried, frenzied. And this book invites us all to slow down, notice, and take it all in. The book wrestles with serious issues, including sex trafficking and domestic violence, and yet the book is refreshingly optimistic, with an intoxicating sense of freedom and possibility."
-Dan White, author of Under The Stars and The Cactus Eaters
"Who has the luxury of time to contemplate women's condition?" asks Augustine Blaisdell in her charming memoir Women À La Mode. At once serious and roman- tic, this is a madcap and magical book that confronts how class intersects with gender and race. Blaisdell upends our expectations of the American in Paris narra- tive, taking the reader on a whirlwind journey through feminist history while sharing moments of vulnerability and personal discovery. Women À La Mode cele- brates the power of intergenerational female friendship, showing us how these bonds can bring us together and carry us into a bright future."
-Doretta Lau, author of
How Does a Single Blade of Grass Thank the Sun? and Cause and Effect
